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He has spent the last two years building the unregulated arm of Chicago natural gas utility Peoples Energy Corp., and already has a unit approaching $200 million in annual revenues, with 50 employees.

Nearly all of that business is coming from commercial natural gas customers. But bigger growth opportunities await in Illinois' larger electricity market, which began opening to competition in October and will be open for all customers in 2001.

Increasingly, Mr. Rumman's unit, Peoples Energy Services, is what the parent company is counting on to generate growth, given that the utility's monopoly gas-delivery service in its Chicago territory grows slowly.

"He's had to build an organization out of nothing," says Thomas M. Patrick, president and chief operating officer of Peoples Energy. "He did it from scratch in a very short time."

Says Mr. Rumman: "I live and breathe this stuff. We have this marvelous opportunity to create something that hasn't been created before. We are in a race. He who innovates the best will succeed."

Mr. Rumman's biggest challenge: establishing an entre-preneurial, customer-oriented culture -- "where people are doing business with you because they want to do business with you" -- within a company that has enjoyed monopoly status for decades.

Mr. Rumman migrated to the energy industry after three years at General Motors Corp. He took a job with Entrade Corp., a Louisville, Ky., firm buying and selling gas on the wholesale and retail markets. After seven years, he landed with Louisville's LG&E Corp., overseeing an initiative to partner with utilities to help them better manage their assets.

Mr. Rumman says he wants to run a big company someday, adding, "I hope it's the company I'm creating now."